Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Lakeview case dismissed

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today upheld the dimissal of a lawsuit challenging the consolidation of the Lakeview School District with the Barton-Lexa School District. Lakeview, you may remember, gave its name to the historic state lawsuit over unconstitutional school funding and was consolidated itself in the aftermath.

The plaintiffs argued, among others, that majority black school districts were disproportionately affected by school consolidation and that the 350-student minimum district limit was arbitrary. The court said legislation implementing the state Supreme Court's Lakeview ruling was racially neutral on its face. It also said the state had a legitimate interest in promoting economies of scale in school districts.

The Arkansas Democratic Party has waded hip-deep (maybe over its head) into the suddenly hot issue of Confederate statuary. It has called for removal of such monuments to museums or private places.

Another member of Gov. Asa Hutchinson's senior staff is heading for the exit. Kelly Eichler, senior advisor for criminal justice (and a Hutchinson appointee to the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees) has given notice she'll be leaving in a couple of weeks.

This is Rubio's axiomatic answer to Donald Trump's insistence that he and he alone will Make America Great Again: America is the greatest, always has been.

Most Shared

Gospel and R&B singer and civil rights activist Mavis Staples, who has been inspiring fans with gospel-inflected freedom songs like "I'll Take You There" and "March Up Freedom's Highway" and the poignant "Oh What a Feeling" will come to Little Rock for the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the desegregation of Central High.

Everything that Donald Trump does — make that everything that he says — is calculated to thrill his lustiest disciples. But he is discovering that what was brilliant for a politician is a miscalculation for a president, because it deepens the chasm between him and most Americans.

Watching the Charlottesville spectacle from halfway across the country, I confess that my first instinct was to raillery. Vanilla ISIS, somebody called this mob of would-be Nazis. A parade of love-deprived nerds marching bravely out of their parents' basements carrying tiki torches from Home Depot.

Most Viewed

A man who says he's a former University of Arkansas student now living in New England has identified himself as the person wearing an "Arkansas Engineering" T-shirt in the Friday white supremacist march in Fayetteville. He apologized for involving UA in the story and to the professor misidentified as being the person wearing the shirt.